Hello again – what a day that was…..hope yours was decent, mine started with watching my Arsenal lose (again) and then a cold chilly spot of football myself and I felt like heaping revenge on the ball for this morning. Let’s just say the day continued as it started. So back to something a bit more fun. The Clash Cup Round Two – before I explain the format we have one result to share from round one -

Protex Blue defeated The Magnificent Dance 34 – 20

So we are all set with the contenders for round two. (You might want to skip this paragraph) Don’t forget we have 25 songs ‘seeded’ due to the initial voting which will be introduced in round three – let’s call them the heavyweights, the final 25 you all selected would make for the ultimate Clash CD but those votes were cast months ago so nothing is written in stone. From round one 64 songs make it through, 54 outright winners plus the 10 runners up that compiled the most most votes. From these 64 we’ll carry forward 32 winners + the 7 best runners up (percentage of all votes cast) = 39 songs + the 25 seeded songs for our final 64! It’s not as complex as it sounds but we’ll end up with 64 brilliant songs to match up head to head.

Voting I’ll leave open for a week – and the sincere goal is to run at least two matches per week. In a perfect world round two will run over the next 16 weeks (at the most) and will try and get through it a bit quicker as round three will be something else. You don’t need to register – just click to vote – one vote per match up.

I’ll mention how the song did in the prior round, you can click on the song to hear it before you vote and I’ll share an opinion if it might help the propaganda of getting the songs I want to see through (I’m kidding). Songs are selected via a random number generator which has the approval of Bernard Rhodes.

Round Two Match One

Cheapskates versus Kingston Advice

Blimey that’s a tough one to start things off I am going to hold off on voting til tomorrow but probably leaning towards one of them. Cheapskates strangely enough also featured in our first week of match ups back on August 16! Kingston Advice came out of the hat the next week.

Form -

Cheapskates won round one 27-4 over Idle in The Kangaroo Court  87.1%

Kingston Advice won in round one 27-10 over Look Here 73.0%

Odds (pure supposition) I’d say Cheapskates is a slim favourite but you may see the Sandinista! track go through as a best runner up. So every vote matters even if your preference is trailing.

Best Lyrics?

Don’t give me the benefit
Of your doubt
‘Cos I’ll bite it off and spit it out

In these days the beat is militant
Must be a clash there’s no alternative
In these days nations are militant
We have slavery under government

Listen here – Cheapskates or Kingston Advice

Thanks for voting !!!

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Good Morning from a wet and gloomy Phoenix, funny after living in London that you can grow to love mornings like this but it’s quite lovely and almost (51f) brisk outside. I’ve got the coffees in and I have some time before Arsenal play Chelsea, I can only hope that unlike last weekend we actually remember how to defend as I can’t stomach another defeat today. I was also putting together the list for 2nd round of The Clash Cup, if I get that finished I hope to have the second round started tonight.

I’d written about this once last year but was reminded how great his work was and he’s since added more items. Japanese artist Nob Suzuki came

to my attention with the Clash figures he made but has added more since to his collection. He sells items privately via ETSY and unlike so much artwork it is actually pretty affordable. In addition to the figurines there’s wall art, t-shirts and more – if you are ever struggling for a unique gift for a Clash fan in your life I suggest you visit his page (and I hope those that love me are reading…).  If nothing else it makes a nice change from some of the less than stellar sweatshop crap you see elsewhere on line, the very fact that Clash shirts are mass produced by people being paid insulting wages is wrong on multiple levels, not that I’m limiting that statement to Clash shirts of course.

I’m always on the lookout for artists who were inspired by The Clash and Ebony Bones isn’t shy about her influences in this recent article in the Chicago Tribune. Ebony Bones (Thomas) first got noticed via her MySpace page and first toured supporting The Slits. The subsequent two years have seen her getting bigger gigs and appeared at SXSW last year. Her look and sound are both memorable – there is a crossover of that old Burundi Beat sound from Adam and The Ants and a bit of rap with punk, she’s been championed by Damon Albarn, Rat Scabies and many others. The best thing about the music is that you can’t file it one place – and she looks marvelous just a sense of ‘why not’. South London punk for the new decade. Anyway she knows her roots and it’s interesting to hear her background (she was born in’85 I think) and influences in the interview.

“When I was growing up in the ’80s, my dad had a small market selling punk music to West Indians, Punk and reggae were mixing in London, and bands like the Clash galvanized that.

Take a few minutes to listen to some of her stuff – and get past the Bow Wow Wow comparisons, as there is more under the surface in the lyrics. To get an idea about her fashion and visual style that’s caused a stir check this video.

On a related note – here’s a great article about fashion, Central St Martin’s College and being at the heart of it all in Soho in the late 70′s. I remember people just name dropping St Martins when I was a teenager was like ‘oh wow, who do you know?’ seems not much has changed.

In addition to London, Sheffield and Manchester I think Liverpool has been the most important scene for punk and post punk over the last 35

years. For what is a relatively small city the number of bands that I’ve been fixated with that come from near the Mersey has been remarkable. From The Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes and Wah! the blueprint was there for so many that followed. I just stumbled upon an article about a photographer who has captured so much of what was happening in clubs and gigs during those formative years (including snaps of The Clash) Francesco Mellina. Many of his classic B/W photos have been made into T-Shirts under the ‘Icons’ range including this one of Joe Strummer. However its the photographs I really wanted to draw attention to – just remarkable images from a time that seemed to be lost to history. His exhibition hopefully will get a future run elsewhere – for now please have a look at the pages for that site and also I recommend his facebook page. For an appetiser just look at the photo of Bernard Sumner up above. This site has some fantastic photos and an interview.

Have a good one.

As promised…the Clash Cup is back, sadly I can’t same for Arsenal as we were dismantled by a Manchester United team who were far more efficient with their attacks and aided by some extremely naive defending by my club. It cast a shadow over the entire day and was only remedied when I dragged my 42 year old legs down to the park this afternoon to play some football myself. Ah well…you’re not here to learn of my malaise but to get back into The Clash Cup – our own unofficial quest to determine the best 16,8 and finally top 4 Clash songs of all time. I dusted off my spreadsheet this afternoon and learned we have one final Round One match to make our votes heard on and then this week we’ll dive into round two. The songs that remain in round two are for the most part all exceptionally good so the voting will be frantic and important.

A brief explanation if you’re new to the blog – we originally listed all know Clash songs and then took a few weeks to ‘seed’ 16 of the best Clash songs. The remaining songs (142 of them) all went into the bucket and a random number generator selected songs to be paired off and voted for. The online poll allows one vote per user and we closed the polls typically 72 hours after the posting went live. The response was great and not everyone could be happy with every result (myself included) but with one vote remaining we are now just about ready to move onto Round 2. First though that final battle -

Protex Blue versus The Magnificent Dance

Two well known tracks on the final slate so please give careful consideration. I’ll close the polls on Wednesday and plan to start Round 2 on Weds or Thursday of this week.

Protex Blue - I believe this is one of the very oldest existing songs that The Clash recorded, the original version dating back to 1975 when Mick Jones wrote it during his brief spell as London SS. Musically its one of the most raw of Clash recordings and a basic chord progression and bridge it has a real garage sound feel. Even the subject matter is a bit fifth form (condoms) but it remains a fun song. Who would have guessed that 35 years later Mick and Tony James would be a band once more writing and recording as Carbon Silicon.

The Magnificent Dance – 12″ records were as much a part of the early 1980′s as being impacted by the cold hand of Margaret Thatcher. The 12″ single evolved for the disco scene initially and became a place for bonus B sides, alternate versions, instrumental versions and the ‘remix’. I’ve always loved this remix of The Mag 7 – probably because my early excellent efforts to make mix tapes always ended with a version of this track faded out at the perfect length to finish side one of my TDK AD 90. If you’re less than 30 years old you probably wonder just what I’m on about.

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Get voting and thanks!